Provinciale Statenverkiezingen 2023

How do political campaigns target voters?

Methodology

In collaboration with Who Targets Me, we monitored over 900 Dutch political advertisers during the 2023 Provinciale Statenverkiezingen (Provincial elections) to better understand how campaigns use different targeting methods made available by Meta. To do this, we used data from the Meta Ad Library, using the new ‘Audience’ data which gives some detail on how pages target their ads.

To better understand the regional election, we kept only advertisers who:

  1. Advertised in the last 7 days (February 25th - March 3rd 2023)
  2. Advertised in the last 30 days (February 2nd - March 3rd 2023)

Note: Meta only provides 7, 30 and 90 days windows for the targeting data in their Ad Library. Meta’s data also lags by a few days. We will update this report as soon as new data is available.

Topline Statistics

February 2nd - March 3rd 2023 (Last 30 days)

In total, political parties spend €191,949 and ran 2802 ad copies on Meta in this timeframe.

Number of Advertisers Top Spenders Number of Ads Total Spend

SP

8


1. SP (€39,127)
2. Lilian Marijnissen (€3,627)
3. SP Noord-Brabant (€259)

270

€43,541

PvdA

21


1. Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA) (€20,825)
2. PvdA Noord Holland (€5,326)
3. PvdA Limburg (€2,621)

276

€35,940

GroenLinks

7


1. GroenLinks (€28,653)
2. GroenLinks Brabant (€743)
3. GroenLinks Limburg (€253)

97

€30,199

Volt Nederland

1


1. Volt Nederland (€13,765)

412

€13,765

FvD

3


1. Forum voor Democratie -FVD (€12,912)
2. Wybren van Haga (€628)
3. Forum voor Democratie Zeeland (€100)

18

€13,640

VVD

25


1. VVD (€5,783)
2. VVD Flevoland (€2,361)
3. Limburgse VVD (€1,564)

327

€13,481

CDA

16


1. CDA (€5,372)
2. CDA Noord-Holland (€2,174)
3. CDA Provincie Utrecht (€665)

166

€10,621

PvdD

9


1. Partij voor de Dieren (€2,984)
2. Partij voor de Dieren Noord-Holland (€804)
3. Partij voor de Dieren Rijnland (€520)

179

€5,303

PVV

6


1. Geert Wilders (€4,440)
2. PVV Fryslan (€208)
3. PVV Enschede (€196)

32

€5,192

Ja21

1


1. Ja21 (€3,836)

261

€3,836

ChristenUnie

8


1. ChristenUnie Flevoland (€1,178)
2. ChristenUnie Noord-Holland (€679)
3. ChristenUnie Fryslân (€485)

112

€2,988

BVNL

1


1. Belang van Nederland - BVNL (€2,952)

38

€2,952

DENK

2


1. DENK (€2,514)
2. Mahmut Sungur DENK (€313)

383

€2,827

50PLUS

4


1. 50PLUSpartij (€1,665)
2. 50PLUS-Overijssel (€544)
3. 50PLUSFlevoland (€257)

59

€2,590

D66

7


1. D66 (€1,225)
2. D66 Overijssel (€315)
3. D66 Zeeland (€110)

110

€2,050

SGP

4


1. SGP provincie Gelderland (€647)
2. SGP (€486)
3. SGP Zeeland (€295)

45

€1,528

Alliantie

2


1. Henriette van Hedel - Alliantie (€1,396)
2. Alliantie (€100)

17

€1,496

February 25th - March 3rd 2023 (Last 7 days)

In total, political parties spend €95,099 and ran 1956 ad copies on Meta in this timeframe.

Number of Advertisers Top Spenders Number of Ads Total Spend

GroenLinks

5


1. GroenLinks (€18,618)
2. GroenLinks Brabant (€705)
3. Jesse Klaver (€250)

78

€19,899

SP

5


1. SP (€11,535)
2. Lilian Marijnissen (€1,547)
3. SP Noord-Brabant (€137)

106

€13,419

PvdA

16


1. Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA) (€5,231)
2. PvdA Noord Holland (€2,595)
3. PvdA Zuid-Holland (€1,801)

161

€13,389

Volt Nederland

1


1. Volt Nederland (€12,652)

412

€12,652

FvD

2


1. Forum voor Democratie -FVD (€5,863)
2. Wybren van Haga (€590)

10

€6,453

VVD

20


1. VVD (€2,219)
2. Limburgse VVD (€1,064)
3. VVD Flevoland (€670)

257

€6,078

CDA

12


1. CDA Noord-Holland (€2,174)
2. CDA Provincie Utrecht (€665)
3. CDA Flevoland (€496)

139

€4,746

PvdD

9


1. Partij voor de Dieren (€2,766)
2. Partij voor de Dieren Noord-Holland (€605)
3. Partij voor de Dieren Rijnland (€280)

158

€4,421

BVNL

1


1. Belang van Nederland - BVNL (€2,500)

36

€2,500

ChristenUnie

7


1. ChristenUnie Flevoland (€1,098)
2. ChristenUnie Fryslân (€330)
3. ChristenUnie Noord-Holland (€317)

85

€2,221

PVV

3


1. Geert Wilders (€1,347)
2. PVV Hengelo (€100)
3. PVV Fryslan (€100)

18

€1,547

Ja21

1


1. Ja21 (€1,539)

110

€1,539

50PLUS

4


1. 50PLUSpartij (€978)
2. 50PLUSFlevoland (€198)
3. 50PLUS-Overijssel (€129)

42

€1,415

DENK

2


1. DENK (€1,046)
2. Mahmut Sungur DENK (€293)

249

€1,339

Alliantie

1


1. Henriette van Hedel - Alliantie (€1,325)

13

€1,325

D66

6


1. D66 (€425)
2. D66 Overijssel (€315)
3. D66 Zeeland (€110)

46

€1,150

SGP

4


1. SGP (€486)
2. SGP Zeeland (€295)
3. SGP provincie Gelderland (€125)

36

€1,006

Spending per Targeting Criteria

How much did campaigns spend on different targeting methods?

February 2nd - March 3rd 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 25th - March 3rd 2023 (Last 7 days)

Top Targeted Audiences

Here, we show the top targeted audiences for each party (ranked by amount of Euro spend). Most (but not all) of these audiences are “interest” audiences, i.e. the parties targeted people interested in “Books” or “Politics”.

February 2nd - March 3rd 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 25th - March 3rd 2023 (Last 7 days)

Top Contested Audiences

Here, we show the top most contested audiences, i.e. where all parties have spent considerable amounts of money competing to reach voters with the same interests. Most (but not all) of these audiences are “interest” audiences, i.e. the parties targeted people interested in “Books” or “Politics”.

February 2nd - March 3rd 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 25th - March 3rd 2023 (Last 7 days)

Age Targeting

February 2nd - March 3rd 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 25th - March 3rd 2023 (Last 7 days)

Gender Targeting

February 2nd - March 3rd 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 25th - March 3rd 2023 (Last 7 days)

Education Targeting

February 2nd - March 3rd 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 25th - March 3rd 2023 (Last 7 days)

Job Targeting

February 2nd - March 3rd 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 25th - March 3rd 2023 (Last 7 days)